Nadene Goldfoot
The idea has been proposed by geneticist Dean Hamer, graduate of Harvard Medical School, b: 1951, in the 2004 book called The God Gene: How Faith is Hardwired into our Genes. Dean Hamer is an Emmy Award winning filmmaker, New York Times Book of the Year author, and NIH scientist emeritus with a long history in communicating complex and controversial ideas to diverse publics. He formed Qwaves with partner Joe Wilson to produce insightful and provocative documentaries about often overlooked social issues. Their films have screened and won awards at film festivals across the world including Tribeca, Berlin and Toronto, viewed on PBS, Netflix, and international broadcasts, won awards at film festivals across the world including Tribeca, Berlin and Toronto, viewed on PBS, Netflix, and international broadcasts, won support from Sundance, the Ford Foundation, ITVS and Pacific Islanders in Communications, and used as outreach and educational tools by a range of community and educational organizations.
The God gene hypothesis proposes that human spirituality is influenced by heredity and that a specific gene, called vesicular monoamine transporter 2 (VMAT2), predisposes humans towards spiritual or mystic experiences.
In the beginning, mankind had become polytheistic. The people were frightened, as I would be, of earthquakes, volcanoes erupting, storms, etc, that were happening that they did not understand. So they invented gods controlling each frightening experience and wanted to appease them, to stop their frightening acts. They even went so far as to sacrifice their own beloved people, and sometimes others, in order to stop the fright.
We even see this practice continuing with the Aztecs with their human sacrifice practices. "The Aztecs were the Native American people who dominated northern Mexico at the time of the Spanish conquest in the early 16th century. A nomadic culture, the Aztecs eventually settled on several small islands in Lake Texcoco where, in 1325, they founded the town of Tenochtitlan, modern-day Mexico City. The Aztecs practiced human sacrifice to honor their gods, ensure the world's survival, and intimidate enemies.
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Along came Abram/Abraham who introduced to his own family the idea of a single power controlling the universe; One G-d, as it were. The family continued with this knowledge through time until it came to Moses, a Prince of Egypt, who also discovered that he was of this family, and also believed in the same idea which he re-taught to the people on the Exodus, 600,000 strong.
The polytheism of the rest of the world continued until Jesus, a Hellenized Jew, came along, teaching an upgrade version of Judaism, which caused his followers not to understand as they did, but turned around thinking he was a G-d instead. Yes, it's found that some of the first Christians considered Jesus as a god according to floor excavations in Israel. Certain aspects of polytheism was still practiced even though people did become monotheistic to a point with many accepting a trio of a belief of the father, the son, and the holy ghost, which Jewish people could not agree with. Everyone involved had mystic experiences which were spiritual in nature.
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Moses had experience with the burning bush for one, that he recorded.
The major arguments of the hypothesis are:
(1) spirituality can be quantified by psychometric measurements;
(2) the underlying tendency to spirituality is partially heritable;
(3) part of this heritability can be attributed to the gene VMAT2; The vesicular monoamine transporter 2 (VMAT2) gene, also known as SLC18A2, encodes a protein that plays a crucial role in the transport and storage of neurotransmitters in the brain.
(4) this gene acts by altering monoamine levels; and Monoamine levels can be altered by a number of factors, including diet, stress, and injury. These changes can affect mood, behavior, and cognition.
Perhaps that is why following kashrut (diet that is kosher eating only specific animals (protein) were considered to be okay. It interfered with the ability of the G-dgene to act or not.
(5) spirituality provides an evolutionary advantage by providing individuals with an innate sense of optimism.
I like this last one, being a real optimist. That person could be carrying the gene. " According to the God Gene hypothesis, spirituality has a genetic component, of which (VMAT2) comprises one component by contributing to sensations associated with mystic experiences, including the presence of God and feelings of connection to a larger universe." The question we all ask if we think we are optimists is, "Do I carry the G-d gene?
The research uses the self-transcendence scale developed by psychologist Robert Cloninger to quantify spirituality using three sub-scales: 3 studies by Lindon Eaves and Nicholas Martin's findings demonstrated that approximately 40% of the variation in self-transcendence was due to genes, so it's inherited.
"self-forgetfulness" (as in the tendency to become totally absorbed in some activity, such as reading);
"transpersonal identification" (a feeling of connectedness to a larger universe); and
"mysticism" (an openness to believe things that remain unproven, such as ESP).
Cloninger suggests that taken together, these measurements are a reasonable way to quantify (make measurable) an individual's propensity to be spiritual.
Neurotransmitter diseases are neurological and psychological disorders caused by imbalances in neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters are chemical messengers that carry signals in the nervous system. Diseases similar to Parkinson's disease, which also involve imbalances in brain neurotransmitters, include: Multiple System Atrophy (MSA), Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP), Dementia with Lewy Bodies, Corticobasal Degeneration, and Dystonia, all of which can manifest with Parkinson-like symptoms due to disruptions in dopamine levels or other neurotransmitters in the brain. Jewish people are studied for these. Three important dominantly-inherited neurological diseases were discovered to be particularly common among various Jewish ethnic groups. For idiopathic torsion dystonia (ITD), previously thought to be recessively transmitted among Ashkenazi Jews, we have established an autosomal dominant mode of inheritance.
The Catholic Church has many spiritual people known as Saints. They are an outgrowth of the original Christians who attended Constantine the Great's meeting in 325 CE in Rome when they made many decisions about Jesus and what he was. "In 325 AD, Roman Emperor Constantine I convened the First Council of Nicaea, a meeting of Christian bishops in the city of Nicaea. The council was held to address issues that threatened the unity of the church and empire."
My question now is: how is it that there are so many saints in the Catholic Church who are not following our Jewish law of kashrut? Who are our spiritual Jews today?Could it be that once the gene was developed as being spiritual, it has been handed down ever since like the other genes? We Jews, following kashrut, should become more spiritual, and maybe they are.
What I find out is that too much or too little of something affects the neurotransmitter. We can either inherit the spirituality or the Parkinson's disease.Wow! Our brain causes both! The brain is affected by what we eat or don't eat. We can realize that drugs, meds, smoking do affect us. It no doubt has affected our G-dgene as well.
I don't know if Dr. Hamer knows it or not, but his surname, Hamer, can also be a Jewish (Ashkenazic) and German: variant of Hammer. It's more likely to be Pennsylvania Dutch or English from the Normans. If Dutch, well,there were lots of Jews in Holland at one time, too.
Resource:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Hamer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_gene
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1581205/bio/?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm
https://www.ok.org/consumers/kosher-basics/meat-dairy-pareve/
